Florida SWAT Team Steps Down, Citing 'Political Climate'

[babylonsister]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/hallandale-beach-swat-team-steps-down-citing-political-climate?ref=home

Florida SWAT Team Steps Down, Citing ‘Political Climate’
PROTECT AND... RESIGN?
Tracy Connor
Published Jun. 12, 2020 9:43PM ET

In the latest example of cops relinquishing their duties amid anti-racism protests, the SWAT team in Hallandale Beach, Florida, resigned from the unit Friday, citing “the political climate.” A memo from the officers cites “command staff” taking a knee and criticism from politicians. “The risk of carrying out our duties in this capacity is no longer acceptable to us and our families,” the memo reads, according to 12News. “The anguish and stress of knowing that what we may be lawfully called upon to do in today's political climate combined with the team's current situation and several recent local events, leave us in a position that is untenable.”

The move comes a week after an elite unit of the Buffalo, New York, police department quit their special assignment amid public outrage that their colleagues shoved a 75-year-old peace activist to the ground and walked past him as blood pooled around his head. As The Daily Beast reported, there's concern police around the country could stage slowdown or strikes in retaliation for punishment of their fellow officers.

[The Magistrate]

1. A Strike By Police, Ma'am

Would do more to reduce disorder than just about any other conceivable action at present.

It would also provide cause to fire every officer participating, as most state laws forbid strikes by police.

[2naSalit]

11. +1, Sir... nt

[Renew Deal]

2. Anyone that saw the unit in Buffalo would not call them "elite"

[hatrack]

3. A city of 37,000 people - I'm sure they need tactical police services all the time . . .

So do they sell the flash-bangs, pepper spray, sound cannon, Tac-50s and the tank on EBay now?

[bullwinkle428]

13. My grandparents spent the last several years of their lives there, back in the 1970s -

it was clearly a retirement community back then. They lived in a nice, high-rise condo close to the beach, with tons of fellow residents in their 70s. A great place to visit as a kid, with the ocean right there! Is this SWAT team necessary for breaking up gambling on the shuffleboard courts?

[ooky]

23. Yeah, I always thought SWAT teams were for dealing with violent crimes.

I would think that its the beat cops that like to hassle jay walkers and people selling cigarettes that should be the one's that are getting worried enough about being held accountable for murdering people to resign.

[sop]

15. Hallandale Beach is a tiny waterfront strip, between Ft. Lauderdale and North Miami Beach,

primarily made up of huge high-rise condos full of retirees and foreign-born emigres, with a population density of 9,242 residents/sq.mi, 10,101% higher than the national average. Hallandale Beach isn't exactly the place where you'd need SWAT teams. It's a rather interesting place, though.

In recent years that stretch has become known as "Moscow-by-the-Sea." Trump has six of his towers in the area, full of sketchy Russian "investors." The Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel have written numerous investigative pieces about the influx Russian (laundered mob?) money into the area, documenting the inflated prices paid to Trump, and other developers. I believe Rudy Giuliani's old pals, Parnas and Fruman, own properties in the area.

The "political climate" they're referring to might be something else entirely.

[ret5hd]

4. Threatening a "slowdown"??? Oh noes!!!

You’ve been asked to “slowdown” for decades...so now you’re gonna say “we’re gonna do it...we’re gonna do it!”

Sure you are. Why don’t you threaten to hold your breath while you’re at it.

[TristanIsolde]

5. Bye Felicia

We don't need your "services"

[SpaceNeedle]

6. Let them resign and/or strike

They will give a first hand proof that all those police are not so indispensable.

[Solomon]

14. Not only that, they are identifying themselves as the "bad cops".

"I'm quittin' 'cause you won't let me kill black people for no reason no more".

[Hav]

7. Good, fuck them

If they have a problem with being held accountable for their own actions and they fear there'll be consequences for lynching citizens, randomly shooting up homes they've entered mistakenly and any other acts of violence against innocent people, then it's a good start that they give up some of their duties. Trying to find responsible people for these kind of jobs who aren't psychos is crucial.

And oh the horror of taking a knee. Racist fucks in a SWAT team? Thank god they resigned. Just make sure they never get back into this position.

[Greybnk48]

19. Ditto! n/t

[Hortensis]

8. Sounds like a 22-year-old mayor's lack of experience

blew up in her face a bit when she joined civilians in public attacks on her own police SWAT team. She ran for mayor while she was still a student, so no surprise if she doesn't know just how experienced movers and shakers successfully battle entrenched interests to clean up governments.

On the bright side, grabbing this moment in history has resulted in a bit of a shakeup, and obviously that and more is needed. Guessing given today's mood and their record, the community, which is very mixed racially, will support her.

But good people are hard to come by, good procedures often developed over years of planning and opposition, and they have to be protected and made into allies while getting rid of the bad. And the mayors have to survive if they're to do their jobs. The SWAT members are still with the PD.

"Who knew a 22-year-old college student could make grown people lose their minds just by stating what I think about things?" ( ) she told Business Insider. "I've stated, and do believe, that it's easy for us to condemn what happened in Minneapolis to George Floyd, but to acknowledge we have our own victims of police brutality, locally, is more difficult and uncomfortable but necessary."

As The New Times Broward-Palm Beach has noted, the Hallandale Beach SWAT team "has a notorious record of raiding homes in Hallandale Beach for small amounts of drugs." Often, however, "it doesn't find any drugs at all." In 2014, the Hallandale Beach SWAT team killed 34-year-old Howard Bowe as he stood, unarmed, in his kitchen. Officers, who were executing a pre-dawn search warrant as part of a drug investigation, also killed his dog. In 2018, the city approved a $425,000 settlement with Bowe's family. No officers involved in the raid were ever convicted of a crime, though eyewitnesses claim they failed to announce themselves before entering Bowe's residence.

https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-swat-resigns-criticism-from-22-year-old-vice-mayor-2020-6

[Sunsky]

16. I would not blame the mayor for their atrocious behavior

Similarly, I wouldn't blame the mayor of Buffalo.
They are just not willing to change their tactics to fit the societal anti-police brutality climate. They are not willing to stop mistreating the citizens especially minorities, so now they're playing the victim while quitting. A typical abuser when the spotlight is on them will act like they're the victim.

Look at their record. The young mayor was perfectly correct to stand with her citizens against police abuse.
At least this will shed some light on what many of us Broward residents have been complaining about for years regarding police mistreatment. If they didn't throw a hissy fit and quit, their horrible record would not have been published.

[Hortensis]

17. No one's blaming her for THEIR behavior. But her job is to

win, and she can only do that by growing her base of allies in the centers of power. Politicians are always running on being outsiders; but if they are genuine outsiders even when elected inside, they fail and end up outside again.

Btw, governments that reform their PDs tend to hire most, or even all, of the same officers right back and retrain them to function in a new culture. Nothing to be gained by offending and even injuring the good ones who want that, assigning them to the enemy by telling their families, friends, the communities they patrol that they're head-busting thugs just like the worst. And if she were the kind of person who was unable to tell or to care who should be kept, that would make her unfit for the job.

[Sunsky]

18. "Insulting and offending"

How about the citizens who are insulted and offended by inaction? The story reported on incidents involving this swat team. Action is required.

"The good ones", their silence is deafening. While they stay silent, we are dying on these streets. I applaud the mayor for standing with her citizens. To the "good ones"- if the facts insult you then do something to effectuate change, if you do nothing then you're a part of the problem.

[Hortensis]

20. No one's dismissing OURSELVES, "the citizens," and

I pointed out that current reform of police corruption is being ENABLED by the citizenry. Now.
As long as we don't get bored and drop it. Because even one month ago that wasn't the case.

Of course it is exactly as you say: If you do nothing then you're part of the problem. +100, Sunsky.

Every person who remained silent enabled police abuse. Above all but hardly only the officers who protected criminals in uniform because the only other choice was to be driven out of police work, leaving their communities with one less good officer.

We The People always knew it was happening. But as is always the way, when it's mostly others who are hurt electorates don't act en mass until it gets so dreadful that it has to be fixed. Evil finally come to a boil, as now.

Most Democrats thought it had in 2016. Blacks had been murdered through this century, but we'd elected a black president and thought the resistance to RW brutality and racism was growing!

Instead, too many of those now spouting -- and some of those marching -- so virtuously from "our side," directly or indirectly helped turn our nation over to the Republicans. The Republicans who actually promised and campaigned on increasing the brutality and racism! Remember? 40 million Americans sat around badmouthing Democrats and didn't even vote. Many people who voted for Obama voted against HRC. Some actually claimed great virtue in refusing to vote for Democrats, the anti-brutality party! It may soothe guilt too many guilty refuse to acknowledge to pretend it's all on otherwise good cops trying to operate within bad systems WE helped create, but that doesn't work for me.

[paleotn]

9. Interpretation.....

We're not allowed to kill brown people with impunity anymore...so we quit.

Well....bye. I'm sure your tiny town won't miss its junior GI Joes.

[Sunsky]

10. Exactly how I read it

This Broward resident (who has family living in Hallandale) says buh bye...

[2naSalit]

12. Facilitating their own rude awakening...

Good! Saves us the trouble of ousting their sorry asses the hard way.

[Wounded Bear]

21. The whole "SWAT" thing has been vastly overemphasized in PD's around the country...

Militarization of the police is not a good thing and has gone on long enough.

[Happy Hoosier]

22. Good. GTFO

If they can’t do their job in a way that they are sure is ethically and legally defensible, the. They shouldn't be doing it.